Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Biologic Treatment of Psoriasis

Would you intentionally put into your body substances that you know will do you lots of damage in the long term? Many people do, without thinking twice about the effects of what they are doing. Smokers do it all the time. Drug addicts trash their bodies every day because they cannot break free of their extremely destructive habit. The sad part is that at some stage most of them were in really good health and took the insane decision to start putting these poisons into their bodies, knowing full well what they have done to other people.

Getting back to my question and rephrasing it somewhat, would you intentionally put medicinal substances into your body that you know will harm you and may well kill you, maybe in 6 months or in 10 years? Would you do this on the say of your doctor without first researching for yourself what the implications are? It is all very well to take a decision to go ahead after you have all of the info but don't do so just because your doctor tells you to.

I'm referring here particularly to the biologic drugs that have become very fashionable for treating psoriasis and arthritis. The range of conditions for which they are now being prescribed is expanding, with digestive and other conditions now also included. I am not going to mention any trade names, you need only to watch the TV advertisements to see them for yourself. When you see those advertisements, pay close attention to the side effects that are listed for them. They include some very dangerous conditions, some of which can be fatal. In plain and simple English, these drugs can and sometimes do kill people.

The manufacturers are required by law to declare these side effects because they are a definite risk. It doesn't mean that only one person has died and it might have been from the drug, it means that there are multiple cases. A lady who I knew started treatment with biologics for arthritis. Within 6 months she had lung problems, contracted TB and had died. She, or her medical insurance, paid a lot of money to the drug company for her treatment and it killed her.

The warnings for these treatments include to not start them if you have any infections, cold, flu etc because they weaken your immune system, which may not be able to fight the infections after the treatment begins. Why would I want to weaken my immune system? Am I crazy? My immune system is what protects me from all sorts of bad things in the air, in the water, on the ground, on any surfaces that I touch, in the food that I eat. Weakening my immune system opens multiple doors to bad things that I do not want to host in my body.

They use these treatments based on the argument that psoriasis, arthritis and many other conditions are rooted in an over-active immune system. It really is an immune system that is out of balance rather than over-active. There may be an over-active trigger that kicks in psoriasis or arthritis but we should be weakening that trigger, not the whole immune system.

There are many foods that work to balance the immune system and there are many others that harm the immune system. Rather than taking artificial chemicals to weaken the immune system we should be eating more of the foods that balance the immune system and less or none of those that harm it. It also costs a lot less money to eat properly than to inject these very expensive chemicals.

You may think that the risk of serious disease or death is worth the easy route to treating your psoriasis. My choice is to rather eat properly and stay away from those drugs.

12 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I have come to the conclusion that nothing really helps psoriasis, my diets better, its still comes back etc

    I have recently found liz earle bontanicals and it soothes well, sometimes its all we can ask for

    http://motherhoodormadness.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/ive-got-psoriasis-have-you.html

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  3. Thanks MrsDon. We all have to deal with our psoriasis in the way that we feel best. I have had excellent results from changing my diet, which you might have read in my earlier posts.

    Don't forget that a lifetime of bad eating habits results in a large store of toxins in the body and it can take many months for those to work their way out of your system. Also, improving your diet in a moderate way might not show much benefit. If you have very bad eating habits that include lots of fast foods, cakes, candies, sodas etc then adding good stuff will not do much unless you also get rid of the bad stuff and allow enough time for the toxins to leave your body before deciding that it doesn't work.

    The best route is to have a good body cleanse over 2-3 weeks to flush out the toxins then replace the bad diet with a healthy one. Not many people commit themselves totally to a thorough cleanse followed by a beneficial diet. The whole process can take 3-6 months but you should start to see improvements within a month or two.

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  4. There are a lot of treatment options to choose from to help treat your scalp psoriasis. Using these treatments will vary depending on the severity of the condition. One of the treatment options is to consult with a dermatologist and get prescription strength medications and drugs that can either be taken orally or applied topically. www.psoriasistreatmentbg.com

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  5. Thank you Laurice but your post appears to be SPAM. I am leaving it here in the interests of transparency for my readers. Clicking on your web link brings up an account suspended response and clicking on your name brings up a different name with no profile information. I wanted to see what products or services you are selling but was not successful.

    Your comment says the opposite of what I am saying everywhere on this blog. It is not necessary or desirable for us to put chemicals into our bodies to treat psoriasis. That is the easy way out and certainly not the safest course to overall good health.

    I write this blog to pass on honest opinions and information about what works for me, not to sell any products to visitors. It is important for you as the person with any health condition to think carefully about what you put into or onto your body to treat your condition. Think especially carefully about opinions expressed by those that are trying to sell you something.

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  6. If anyone else is going through the pain of arthritis and severe psoriasis that i am going through, then they will understand that i would put anything into my body to get relief...even if it means i will only for the next 6 months. I would rather live a pain free 6 months and enjoy it to the fullest then to live with this terrible filthy disgusting illness. I hate myself and my life. some times i think of killing myself. No one deserves to have this illness.

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    1. Josh, thank you for your comment. I am sorry to hear that your psoriasis is so bad that you sometimes feel suicidal. I have heard that it can get as bad as that.

      I hope that you have not read only this page, in isolation. It needs to be read along with everything else that I have written on this blog. There are ways to treat psoriatic arthritis without biologic drugs, although it can be a long and slow experimetal process.

      I have no knowledge of your lifestyle nor your diet. Both can have a major effect. Depression goes hand-in-hand with suicidal thoughts. If you are an indoor person and don't get much sunlight then you are probably lacking vitamin D, which leads to depression. Anti-depression drugs can aggravate psoriasis, so you may go into a self-destructive spiral of worsening symptoms increasing depression then needing more drugs. If this is your experience, get outside into the sun daily with minimal clothing when weather permits and supplement with vitamin D.

      If you a lover of fast food, you can do yourself a lot of good by changing to colourful vegetables and fruits in place of the fast food, herbal tea instead of sodas and fish or chicken in place of beef burgers.

      I say again, I don't know if these habits apply to you but they do apply to many people who have psoriasis and other auto-immune conditions that are out of control.

      That said, we must all deal with our health issues the way that suits us.

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    2. Hi Josh
      I can see how you feel, being some one who went to bad depression, it was really bad in addition to all the pains from arthritis, my brain and thinking was foggy, which made me feel i am total loss, no physical strength and no mental clarity, always drowsy and really breathless, can't even function, to top it all stress and work and stress because family member not well. But slowly i came out of everything, somewhere in the back of my mind i left a little light of hope, though i didn't know how to. Though against all kinds of drugs, i decided to take some meds to help my depression, my doctor said i will need to be on it atleast for 9 months to an year, but in less than 2 months i came out of it, i took counselling, did pranayama (a kind of breathing technique - need to learn from a teacher, never through video or such) this helped me on my pains as well, learned meditation, and made it a point to get out of home and be in a place where i am surrounded by loving people who accept me, slowly all this helped me and i came out of it. So yes may be at times we may use meds they help, but we have to help ourselves to get ourselves out of it, for that the best help is be your best friend, without that no one can help, it is not easy to do that when one is in depression, hope you can somehow place urself among a group who is not judgemental, while you are picking urself up.
      Whenver your mind tells you, what is the point of life and ur life is miserable, just tell that mind to go to hell,that is exactly what i did.

      Accept your current state, because that is ur current state, by being sore about it will eat us away, whereas if we accept it, ok this is my current situation, let me see what i can do in this current situation, then some way or other will open up. I know it is easy to preach and each of our situation is differnt, but having gone through it felt i reached the end of it, but came back so i feel u can also do it.

      The mental state has a great part on it, so hold on, trust urself
      Take care
      Love

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    3. Smith, thanks for your input. You have a very valid point about being your own best friend. If we hate ourselves and our lives then we have little chance of improving anything. I am my own best friend and have been for decades. It makes me very aware of what is going on inside my head and in my body. That allows me to sort out problems pretty quickly.

      Something that I can't stress enough for anyone who has depression, you need to get outside into the sun for awhile daily, without sunblock or sunglasses, both of which reduce the benefits. The less sunlight that you can absorb through your skin, the greater the need to supplement with vitamin D. If you get neither sunlight nor vitamin D then you are almost guaranteed to suffer depression.

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    4. By coincidence, a few hours after posting the above response, I received my regular newsletter from Dr Fuhrman on just this subject. Read it on-line at http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/depression-counteract-the-winter-blues-naturally.html .

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  7. Thanks Dix for the link
    want to add couple more things, while going through depression it is like being in a pit, our mind really plays tricks. For the most logical suggestions also our mind will find one reason or the other to dispute it or to argue that but that cannot help me or it doesn't apply for me for so and so reason. We just have to tell the mind, let me give it a try. Even the simple act of eating was not possible for me, i lost about 15 to 20 lbs so quickly. we just need to be like a parent, who persistently bring up that child who is not willing to listen or has excuses for anything the parent say, we have to parent our own mind. The only way is to do the things which we know are good and which we know are being told by our well wishers who we trust, that is the only way to get that unruly mind to control.

    Finally getting back to sun, yes i had done it without lapse everyday, because i didn't see myself capable of doing anything else, so the option was sit around inside the room and feel bad or get outside, i used to walk briskly clapping my hands infront and saying to myself reinforcing positive statements like, i am healthy etc.
    At the end of it i will feel little better that instead of sitting inside home i could get out and walk overpowering my mind. So one small step victory over my depressed mood and mind, each victory was one stepping stone out of that pit.
    In that process of walking though the intention was not to get sunlight, i ended up getting that, it also need to be noted that tests revealed i am Vit D deficient though border line, probably might have been much more before that.

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    1. The very act of going out into the sun is enough to brighten the mood of anyone, so it is well worth the effort.

      If you were diagnosed as borderline vitamin D deficient then your deficiency may have been worse than borderline. For decades RDA for vitamin D has been way lower than it should be. Only now is the medical profession starting to see that vitamin D requirements for good health are much higher than they have been prescribing. No wonder there is so much depression around. I saw on "the Doctors" TV show yesterday that nearly 50% of Americans will be diagnosed with depression at some stage in their lives. Add to that all of those who don't get diagnosed and it is a huge problem, sending a constant string of patients to the doctors.

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